7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
After witnessing a brutal massacre, the legendary hero Sartana is ready to do some investigating. Almost everyone in the tiny town of Indian Creek seems eager to buy up the property left behind by the murder victims, and one of them could well be behind the killings. The sheriff himself is not above suspicion, so Sartana must uncover the culprit all on his own.
Starring: Gianni Garko, Daniela Giordano (I), Ivano Staccioli, Helga Liné, Luis InduniForeign | 100% |
Western | 28% |
Mystery | 12% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English, English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Note: This film is available as part of The
Complete Sartana.
One of the perhaps slightly humorous upshots of the incredible success of The Man with No Name Trilogy is that it at least contributed to an influx of often pretty similar properties featuring
mysterious (if not always laconic) characters with names. Some of these so-called “Euro Westerns” (of which the “Spaghetti Westerns”
were
a subset) were insanely popular in their day, even if that popularity didn’t always extend to the shores of the United States (though it quite often
did).
A cursory sampling of films in this kind of odd niche of genre outings with their putative hero’s name in the titles might include such offerings as
the Django films (Django, Django, Kill... If You Live, Shoot!, Hanging for Django,
Django,
Prepare a Coffin), the Trinity films (They
Call
Me Trinity, Trinity Is Still My Name!
),
the Ringo films (A Pistol for Ringo, The Return of Ringo), the Sabata films (Sabata, Adiós, Sabata, The
Return
of Sabata)
and/or the five Sartana films currently under discussion. What’s a little hilarious about this glut of named characters, all of whom owe at
least
something to the now legendary Leone - Eastwood collaborations, is that along the way character names kind of came and went, and in
various markets some films were marketed as a “named” feature even if that particular character actually wasn’t even featured in the film. In fact
one of the enjoyable supplements on Arrow's fairly recent A Pistol for Ringo & The Return of Ringo: Two Films by Duccio Tessari "double
feature" were the commentaries by Spaghetti Western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke, who kind of jokingly recount at one point
how one of the Ringo films was marketed as a Sartana film in some foreign market (Joyner and Parke are on hand for
these releases as well, and both describe themselves as diehard Sartana fans, and in one of their commentaries for this set also
joke about how Django also ended up in a bunch of titles where the character of that name was nowhere to be found). Also kind of
amusingly, the character name of Sartana was actually introduced in a "non-Sartana" film, the aforementioned The Return of Ringo, where the character was actually one of the bad guys.
But Gianni Garko's characterization was so memorable that the name, if not the actual character, survived as a hero, and as Joyner and Parke
recount in their commentaries on this set, Garko went to some lengths (including lawsuits) to protect his take on the character, down to the
clothes
Sartana wears in the various films.
Have a Good Funeral My Friend. . .Sartana Will Pay is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's insert booklet provides the following information on the transfer:
Have a Good Funeral My Friend. . .Sartana Will Pay is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with Italian and English mono audio. All restoration work was carried out at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 2K resolution on a pin- registered Arriscan and was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, picture instability and other instances of film wear were repaired or removed through a combination of digital restoration tools and techniques. The mono Italian and English soundtracks were remastered from the optical sound track negatives.Though sourced from a negative like four of the five films in the Sartana set, this had the least pleasing color saturation and detail levels for me personally. There's a slightly anemic look to the palette here, as well an intermittent purplish undertone that can make flesh tones look a bit flushed and things like some green curtains look almost chartreuse. That said, there is still a lot to like about the look of this transfer. When close-ups are utilized, detail levels are often quite commendable, and some of the outdoor material really pops extremely well. As with the other films in this set, grain looks natural and resolves without any problems.
All five of the films feature DTS-HD Master Audio mono tracks in both Italian and English (the covers incorrectly state LPCM 1.0, for what that's worth). There's no significant difference in fidelity and overall sound between the five films, with a couple of exceptions noted below. I opted for the original Italian mixes, while also regularly toggling to the English language tracks for comparison's sake. There is surprisingly little difference in amplitude and general sound quality between the languages, with the possible exception of I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death, where the English language track sounds tinnier, especially with regard to music. All of the Italian language tracks have noticeable hiss, but no other really problematic elements. While sync is loose, as is mentioned in the booklet (due to the Italian tradition of post looping everything), fidelity is surprisingly robust in these films, offering good support for dialogue and effects, which can admittedly sound a little boxy at times (gunfire especially). All five films boast rather interesting music scores, not necessarily as "Morricone-esque" as one might expect, and in fact there's an almost Bacharach like 6/8 theme for I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death. Several scores feature potentially bright instruments like harpsichords, which sound clear without sounding strident. Some of the cues in Have a Good Funeral My Friend... Sartana Will Pay sound influenced by the then insanely popular music of Lalo Schifrin for television's Mission: Impossible, with bongos establishing tension. Interestingly, Light the Fuse... Sartana Is Coming's English language track has some underscore where the original Italian doesn't.
Have a Good Funeral My Friend. . .Sartana Will Pay was my personal favorite of the films in this set, and that's kind of odd in a way, since this film has some fairly hackneyed plot elements as well as an arguably detour filled narrative arc. But there is so much going on in any given sequence, a lot of it "meta" aspects like peripatetic camera moves, that the energy level is routinely quite high. Video is just slightly less pleasing than in the other Sartana films sourced off of negatives. The commentary is great, and Have a Good Funeral My Friend. . .Sartana Will Pay comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
Una nuvola di polvere... un grido di morte... arriva Sartana / Gunman in Town
1970
Sono Sartana, il vostro becchino / Sartana the Gravedigger
1969
Se incontri Sartana prega per la tua morte / Gunfighters Die Harder
1968
C'è Sartana... vendi la pistola e comprati la bara! / A Fistful of Lead
1970
Special Edition
1966
1967
Goodbye Texas
1966
E Dio disse a Caino...
1970
Ballad of Death Valley / The Angry Gun / Ringo the Killer / Una Pistola per Ringo
1965
Blood at Sundown / Il ritorno di Ringo
1965
È tornato Sabata... hai chiuso un'altra volta
1971
Due once di piombo
1966
Django, prepare ton cercueil / Preparati la bara!
1968
I quattro dell'apocalisse
1975
Le colt cantarono la morte e fu... tempo di massacro / The Brute and the Beast
1966
My Name Is Shanghai Joe / The Fighting Fist of Shanghai Joe / To Kill or to Die / The Dragon Strikes Back / Il mio nome è Shangai Joe
1973
La resa dei conti
1966
The Rope and the Colt / Une corde, un Colt...
1969
¡Mátalo!
1970
10,000 Dollars for a Massacre / 10.000 dollari per un massacro
1967